There are so many great galleries and museums in London, but they can be very crowded during the day.

When I first came to Guangzhou in 1981, it seemed such a hard and dour place with everyone in Chairman Mao uniforms.

I love driving around east London - it's always full of surprises. Actually, I don't drive myself - I like to be driven.

Architecture is really about well-being. I think that people want to feel good in a space... On the one hand it's about shelter, but it's also about pleasure. The intention is to really carve out of a city civic spaces and the more it is accessible to a much larger mass in public and it's about people enjoying that space. That makes life that much better. If you think about housing, education, whether schools and hospitals, these are all very interesting projects because in the way you interpret this special experience.

Too many are too obsessed by method. it becomes a dogma.

People say I design architectural icons. If I design a building and it becomes an icon, that's ok.

Different projects give you satisfaction in different ways.